studiot

One problem with allowing user interaction is that the IT fraternity soon persuade non savy managers to 'improve' the display with 'better' IT. This has already happened on the automated tills at supermarkets where it now takes at least three menus to not buy a plastic bag. Don't forget there are two kinds of situation, Public and Private. So displays that are open to the public eg railway station lifts, are different from displays that are in private locations eg company internal lifts.

I am suggesting that the agent possessing the free will cannot be part of the system itself. But no, not like souls. Like someone standing at an ice cream van. The van is the system, the someone is the agent with free will that can be applied to the system. I am sorry my dislexic typing interfered with the next bit which should read " So although we want and try to exercise our choice, perhaps we might be struck by lightning or just distracted by another event, just as we place our order. " The first possibility would be the action of an external agent (the lightning) that does not possess free will. The second might be another van offering a better price. Either way we never buy anything from that van.

Of course, having posited the existance of a system and an external agent with free wiil, it is not a major leap to imagine a second (or more) agent who is just bent on frustrating our will. So all though we want and try to exercise our choice, perhaps we might be struck but lightning or jsut distracted by another event, just as we place our order.

So what is your take on the third finite difference column in a (finite difference) table of values of a quadratic function?

Thank you for clarifying your question. I now fully understand. It has made me think further about it ; +1 for an excellent question. I think the main point I take from the discussion is that it is not as simple as first meets the eye - In shorts It's complicated. We should consider what we mean by deterministic and indeterministic and free will. It is easy when we take the result of a single statement or event to say that it follows this mathematical expression or that one and so is 'deterministic'. But what about a chain of events, each perhaps with its own expression? Do I hear a vote for what was called "The Clockwork Universe" at the end of the 19th century? But what about relativity? What if one of those events in the chain was outside our light cone at the beginning of the chain but moved within it at some point? So is there a limit on the complexity of the event chain we can apply the term deterministic to? So what about indeterministic? Suppose we go up to an ice cream van or a burger van and buy something. We can study purchases form these and say that 15% come away with a coffe, 25% come away with an ice lolly, and so on. We can further say that this means a 15% chance we will buy a coffee, 25% a lolly and so on. We could even venture that this is compatible with free will since we have a free choice of everything on offer. We could also venture that it is deterministic that we will not buy say tea or brown bread ice cream, neither of which are on offer. And what about free will herself? Well it is common in Science to consider a system and everything external to that system. Free will is something external to a system and applied to it. It is not part of the system, as is the temperature. So why can we not have free will to choose the actual event path taken by the system? So my answer to your question has to be Yes there are more views available than the strict bibnary choice originally presented. And these increase in number and scope with system complexity.

Yes zero is formally a limit of many sequences. In fact there is even a special name for them, A null sequence is a sequence that has zero as its limit.

Ravell this is the clock you have specified in the opening post so this is the clock I have been working with. Other clocks are a red herring as is the train in you last post. Since you specified this, it's pretty obvious that I would work with this and consequently all my questions would pertain to the situation whereby the traveller reads that digital display and indeed I took great pains to describe this several times. The machine frequency that generates the reading on this display is irrelevant. The display is certainly not read by any 1kHz EM wave, which is not light or even a radio wave. Each time I have asked you and I ask you once again. What numbers will the traveller see on the clock when his clock reads say 1 month, 6 months, 1 year by your predictions? Your system must have some predictions for this situation or it is totally worthless.

You don't have to go microscopic or to QM to find non deterministic laws in Physics. A good classical macroscopic example would be turbulent motion in fluid dynamics.

What do you mean?

Perhaps that's why large department stores put the list of departments at the entrance to a lift, not inside it?

Just out of interest, how would one power (heat) a thermocouple at night, when it gets cold?

Thank you taeto for that comprehensive analysis. +1 Yes and I think, even in Mathematics it is implied in some activity that the finite something is non zero, for example in finite differences and finite elements. Otherwise you would never move across the net, although in finite differences you carry on until the differences are zero. But in Engineering the terms Poles and Zeros are often used, here is an extract from an Engineering book of that name. Note the definite use of a real finite zero. So, no offence meant, swansont, nothing personal and all that, but I think the jury is out on technical use of finite zero, but taeto has shown tha mathematically it is finite. We also have the term singularity (removable and permanent).

Anyone who lives in our (very pleasant) part of the world and tries to run a remote unattended device from a turbine will very soon run into hooligans, vandals and other toe-rags. I don't know why people do such things. Also don't forget that the OP asked for possible uses for this technology. Most technologies have competing technology, yet for instance a Welshman managed to paddle a coracle across the Atlantic, and an Irishman did the same in a skin boat. Neither were the best ocean going vessels for the job, even in their day.

Well sort of, certainly from the perspective of the average drone. But consider this. The video maker is powering a motor, a notable guzzler of electric power. Years ago, when they started illuminating road signs and powering traffic or weather station data collectors they had to install portable generators or lay cables. More recently with the dramatic reduction in power consumption of these devices solar power has been employed. One of these devices could operate in the (near) dark, say at the bottom of a tall cliff in a canyon and perhaps supply enough power for a low demand device. Such low demand devices are already in the microwatt range.

The whole point I was making, geordie, is not there there is a shortage of 'nows' or none, but that there are too many! And they are all equally valid. The same goes for 'heres' Thank you for telling me this Eise, something I have learned today. +1 It also supports my oft contended statement that there is nothing you can say in mathematics you can't also say in English, but there are plenty of things the other way round.

Since further discussion about this is offtopic I have started a new thread for folks to express their opinions. https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/115450-is-zero-finite/

This issue is offtopic in a thread about electrons so I have started a new thread for discussion. https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/115443-electrons-how-do-they-work/?tab=comments#comment-1062243 Finite is often used to mean a non-zero number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_number "In mathematical parlance, a value other than infinite or infinitesimal values and distinct from the value 0" I prefer the definitions of Dedekind : not infinite Russell : Able to be counted using a terminating sequence of natural numbers. Consider the equation x2 - 2x + 1= 0 Is the difference between the two roots of this quadratic or infinite?

Indeed, which is why I based my figure smack in the middle of the range that can can currently be found. This range is very large, larger than the range of atomic sizes for instance. Furthermore zero is a finite number.

A sort of Wimshurst machine in reverse. https://www.google.com/search?q=wimshurst+machine&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b Electrostatics is fun.

Don't the particle Physicists just love bring out new particles to join the party? Ther seems to me to be a good deal of substitution/introduction of new parameters without proper jsutification, just desgined to fit the figures, in that paper. But then I am not a fan of electro-gravity.

Not a point in space in the way you are thinking of it. For many purposes an electron can be considered as what is called a 'point particle'. This is defined to be a lump of 'stuff' small enough for its dimensions to be insignificant compared to the other dimensions in consideration. For instance when considering the orbits of the planets, they are considered as 'point particles' in comparison to their distance from the Sun. An electron has actual dimensions around a million times smaller than the atom for instance, whilst the Earth's radius is less than 30,000 smaller than its orbital radius.

I was not complaining, just offering information. You may not have seen that thread. You do have a point, though I can't see why anyone would complain if you did post your reference there, I can't say if it is a valid point of view (or not) but it is a perfectly respectable one.

Thank you, I will await with interest. I assume the rest of your post referred to your 'discussion' with Strange. Perhaps I can pour some oil here because I think you two are talking at cross purposes. The reason is simple. One way of looking at simultaneity in the four dimensional continuum you mention is to plot isolines (contours) of constant time coordinate. The problem is that these contours are different when viewed from every point in the continuum. That is you have as many different statements of 'now' as the are points in the continuum. Worse you have no reason to accept any one of these as 'the rightone' or 'the best'. This is the same chain of reasoning that leads to the idea that there is no absolute frame of reference.

We already have one current thread discussing the incorrect speculation that light is some form of wave. https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/115425-is-time-a-wave/ Whilst we have no evidence that time is granular we have no evidence that it is not either. This question has occupied some of the foremost minds of our day in the Cambridge University book edited by Professor Majid On Space and Time Note that granularity does not necessarily mean particulate, they are different things.

Yes please, I have definitely been wasting my time with this poster who refuses to respond properly. I asked three specific questions several times about non standard terminology introduced but not defined and have only had an evasive response to one of them. Reported